


dismantle; repair

by peleliu



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 02:38:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1493575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peleliu/pseuds/peleliu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the second time Corvo nearly feels a laugh bubble up, something hysterical and broken caught in his throat, because he's kneeling in the dirt with one hand and here the Outsider has three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dismantle; repair

**Author's Note:**

> remember that time there was an alternate script where daud chopped off corvo's hand in the flooded district?  
> me too  
> this is part of a longer (slightly more inappropriate lmao) work but it can also stand alone so here you go.

_Your missing hand is lying at the base of an oil-soaked tower across the street. I suggest you awaken and go find it, because I happen to know you’ll need it._

   It's windy in the flooded district, windy on the rooftops made treacherous and slick with rain water beneath his feet. It isn't cold, not really, but a chill has settled in Corvo's bones, the warmth bled from him, and it's difficult to breathe with his chest locked up with ice. Or is it blood? Or loss of blood. His breath is a harsh rasp, a rattle in his lungs, rapid and never deep enough as he staggers toward his foolish goal, struggles for purchase with half-numb fingers on railings and walls, roof tiles and window ledges, anywhere but the ground. 

   This would be easier with both hands, he thinks, and wheezes a sound which might have been a laugh could he gather enough breath for such a thing. His head is spinning by the time he sees the tower, the roof listing dangerously beneath his feet, though he knows the dip and sway is all in his mind, like the cold in his chest, like they way he can almost still feel his left hand though it lies meters away in the grime at the foot of that tower. And there is no point to this, no saving what was lost. He is no physician but sense tells him this, it's been too long, the injury too severe, why is he doing this.

_Because he said..._

   The distance between his rooftop pathway and the tower's base passes in a confused blur and by the time his knees hit the muddy ground he isn't sure if he'd climbed or fallen to reach this point. All that matters is he's here, it isn't safe here, and why is he here anyway when he doesn't have any idea what to do next?   

   It takes him too much time, too many precious seconds, to register the scuffed boots occupying his line of sight. He knows them already and knows too that when he looks up - and he does, slowly, because his eyes aren't focusing quite right and he can't stand the dizziness - that he will see those black eyes looking down at him. They're unreadable as ever and he doesn't even attempt  to discern the thoughts passing behind them, just tries not to shiver and clutches his ruined arm to his chest.

  _I'm here,_ he thinks, grasping for any measure of triumph and feeling lost. _I'm..._

   "You've arrived more quickly than anticipated," says the Outsider, and Corvo doesn't bother dissecting his tone, ambiguous as the wind that steals the warmth from his body, he would dearly love to be warm. The Outsider's head tilts and his shifting arm draws Corvo's eye, and for the second time he nearly feels a laugh bubble up, something hysterical and broken caught in his throat, because he's kneeling in the dirt with one hand and here the Outsider has _three._  

   "Your prize," says his benefactor, and Corvo nearly, very nearly flinches when he leans down, extending the thing, severed, too-pale, the tattoo looks so dark now...

   Corvo doesn't take it, remains kneeling, stunned, curled around his ruined arm, but that seems to be enough. The Outsider reaches for him and still he doesn't move, doesn't think to react or pull away when his arm is taken, and there is nothing forceful in the gesture but that grip is like a vise and he marvels at it in his daze. For the span of seconds eyes black as pitch study the truncated limb, the sleeve soaked in blood, turning blue to black, the scorched flesh cauterized because it wouldn't have done to let him bleed out in that hole he'd been tossed into, would it? and Corvo's breath stutters in something that isn't panic because he knows what will happen now, now--

   He isn't sure how long it takes and is just as hazy as to when it ends, just that eventually it does, he isn't dead, spasmodic thrashing dying down to jerks and twitches. He's released and when he reflexively pulls his arm to himself he is whole again, and he hurts, but it's done, and he doesn't dare try to move his fingers because there is a curling tension in his gut that threatens to break him.

   "Good as new," he hears above him, and he is too busy vomiting at the Outsider's feet to think of a response. The creature before him is blessedly silent as he retches into the dirt, and he is more thankful for that than anything, because there is something fragile so close to breaking that he needs to ignore it, can't think about his wrist with its livid new scar, the raised flesh crossed with stitches, bones knit together too fast, blood pulsing into flesh still cold with death.

   He doesn't look at the Outsider when he finally staggers to his feet, just chokes back the vile taste in his mouth and turns in the direction he thinks he needs to go. He needs to be moving or he might think too much, might examine too closely the hollow feeling in his chest, that trembling thing always on the edge of snapping.

   He's stumbling as he leaves but he's looking to the roof line, and his hand -- _new, old, can he feel it?_ \-- protests as his fingers curl, as the mark flares bright, and then he's storeys away and already running, too far to see dark eyes tilt with something like approval before the image splinters into nothing.

 


End file.
